Jesus Charles it did not. What's amazing is no one on the fringe left bothered to talk to or listen to everyone else in Settle is is just on the left. The City Council admitted they had no plan for the additional money, the Socialist sold it as a "tax on Amazon" while ignoring the other 500 plus businesses that would be hit with that tax. And the City has refused to develop a plan with the County to solve the crisis at hand.

This was an overplayed hand by the City Council and they had their asses handed to them. It's not the end of "Progressive Seattle" but maybe it will put the end to activism before good government.

I think you have the cause and effect backwards. This repeal is not the result or manifestation of Seattle moving rightward. Rather, this was a one-off event caused by a unique and nuanced set of circumstances, but now this event is causing Seattle to backlash to the right. It is annoying, and, more than anyone else, Kshama Sawant's toxic "if you're not with me you're against me, my constituents" approach is making people feel "hey, whatever she's a part of, I'm not". And the city is moving rightward. She's terrible for this city.

Yeah, its pretty basic. Rich people are conservative, poor people are liberal.

@1 no one gives a fuck what you think. Stop lying, who are you trying to fool?

@4 savior of progressive Seattle!

@5 JonnoN is out to save the world! And I bet has never once volunteered at a local food bank or with any of the churches that set up meal spots for the homeless in the downtown core.

Check out No Tax on Jobs founder James Maiocco's Twitter profile. The dude follows Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly, Pence and the rest of them. And not ironically. He's a right-wing Christian pro-Lifer living in Wallingford. And now he is setting our public policy.

"Did the Head Tax Repeal Kill the World-Famous Progressive Seattle?"

It killed the world-famous "stupid Seattle" if that's what you mean.

"A key figure in this development is burger heir Saul Spady (the grandson of the founder of Dick’s Drive-In). He, more than Amazon, is actually responsible for the repeal."

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Slog Steven Hsieh has a piece entitled "Amazon Wins: City Council Votes to Repeal Head Tax."

Yes. And soon the fascists will be in control. Burning your precious bookstores. Goosestepping in the streets. Rounding up all the intersectional ne’er do wells and interning them in an antifeminist camp where they are indoctrinated with the lie that men and women are (shudder) different.

Homeless people will be ground up into sausage and fed to the working masses who themselves are teetering on the brink of becoming links themselves. One sprained ankle, one sick day, and BAM!!!You’re a spicy chorizo or andouille memory and your fatherless or motherless children will be forfeit to our overlords the great and mighty Amazon. “All hail Amazon!!!”

So maybe his burgers always did taste like shit. Maybe it was all the grease on those fries that made me feel queasy.
Maybe I was too sentimental about the image of 'good old Dicks', evocative of a Seattle youth that included Ivar and JP Patches.
Maybe I just never really noticed, or rationalized what crap food I was eating.
Well, the blinders are off. Spady just figuratively spit on his burgers.

@11. Try the sausages.

They’re delicious.

I hope this leads to a more effective Progressivism. One where, you know, there's a plan for how/where the money will be spent before you go to the endless taxpayer ATM.

Charles is as uninformed and delusional as ever.

"Sawant went on to become a celebrity who inspired other socialists to run for office."

Yes... and which of those "other socialists" has gotten elected?

"Also, more than 90 percent of Seattle voted against Trump..."

That's pretty much what happens in every D vs R election. President, Governor, US Senate - Seattle votes 90 precent Democratic.

"...and many of these voters are the single reason the whole state is deep blue and has a deeply democratic voting institution."

Since when is "the whole state deep blue"? Our 98 seat state House currently has 50 Ds and 48 Rs. Democrats control the 49-seat state Senate by a single seat - and they just won that last year after a half-decade of Republicans running the Senate.

Charles really needs to get out more.

No. What killed this tax was the disingenuous way it was presented as an "Amazon Tax" and the increasing awareness that the SCC is a Black Hole as far as money is concerned.

There will NEVER be enough funding for Sawant's liking and her whole "if your not 100% with me your against me" act is wearing thin..

@15 Yup..

500 per year, per employee on businesses above 20mil is such a joke. The company I work for is among that size group and the idea that this would ruin us is so fucking laughable. Finance would bleat but there are so many expenses like this of such a larger size that are just bundled into the price of doing business.

This is straight up about the city v business and who has the power. Good going City Council. You're a bunch of wusses. This was a pittance and then you halved it and then caved altogether.

And dems wonder why no one will vote for them.

The food industry gave more money to fight the head tax then amazon...shouldn’t this be examined to see why?

@18: Actually it was only $275 per FTE, which would've been easily absorbed by every one of these companies. So, yeah, even a bigger joke than you thought.

Seattle's progressives pick and choose which issues they're progressive abot. Those tend to be those they believe won't cost them anything. On issues that will have a cost (even if it's only inconvenience), they become conservatives.

I've lived here for 20 years and have never viewed Seattle or even Washington State, for that matter, to be anything other than basically conservative on a majority of issues.

@18 well the final number wasn't $500 per employee so we can assume you're full of blabbering shit. But hey! It builds the false narrative.

@21 is totally right. But nearly every American is like that.

Most of any American political community will default to externalize real costs of everything to somebody else even if they don't realize that's what they're doing. Even so-called progressives. Most people are only "progressive" (or "conservative" for that matter) if it doesn't hurt. Problem is the really intractable social problems cause pain to fix.

The American system has been able to coast on externalizing the real costs of society since our inception - from Slavery to our post-war position as last industrial power standing but all that is beginning to crumble under the pressure of globalism and there is no stopping it.

So if we're lucky and act like grown-ups we may get to choose which segment has bear the bigger brunt (we ALL have to share some of the pain) of fixing our problems: the vast swath of people of the middle and lower classes who are already nearly squeezed dry or the billionaires.

If we don't wake up and choose, the default will be the lower echelons of society. And they won't have the resources to fix all our problems and society will be caught in this polarized downward spiral we are seeing and it will break.

Any delusion Seattle had about being a progressive utopia died long ago, and was replaced by tech bros and NIMBYs who virtue signal on social networks while giving poor people the shaft. Almost everyone who once made Seattle such an amazing city has been pushed out and moved on.

@18 & 22

But had this tax passed and stayed passed? Holy shit. That money would have disappeared into the black hole next to the one where an embarrassing amount of our pot tax money goes.

As poorly thought out as this whole play was, even more poorly thought out was how the city was going to apply this money. History has shown us that if there's a shortfall, the city can be depended upon to spike property taxes and hit up car tabs over and over and over. It's to the point where even if its actually good for us, people won't go for these regressive measures because they're exhausted of the city fucking it up every six months when it comes to siloed groups and money going mysteriously missing. Some days I have to wonder if someone from the city just climbs Mt. Si with a sack of money and opens it to let the wind do whatever it will.

We can regressively tax everything all day long but it does sort of take our eye off the ball that much of the current roster of the SCC reinforces the institutional manic episode of how this city's money can't seem to be productively applied to most things.

Wait... is this whole thing about Amazon? I thought it was about funding homelessness. But every piece I’ve seen in the stranger has hardly mentioned this fact. The lead is always ‘fuck amazon’ and then some hackey pivot to inevitable class conflict.

Some people oppose this tax because it’s poorly structured and will impact a number of employees at places like Starbucks and Costco. Places with mostly low paid employees.

Fucking make up your mind. Are you trying to take down Amazon or are you trying to help the homeless. Cause your current two-for-one approach is just embarrassing.

There's too much money in Seattle for it to be progressive. Lots up people standing, if not on the top, then on the upper reaches of the mountain. No one wants to believe that the system that enabled their success could be fundamentally unfair. After all, they aren't bad people, and they succeeded.

@19 because the food industry has high revenues, low profit margins (1-3%) and several low wage employees. Something 18 & 20 don't understand.

Union-represented construction workers, shouted “No head tax!” at CM Sawant whilst she ineffectually attempted to lecture them on how she really speaks for them.

Anyone who knew that had happened could easily have predicted what would happen to the tax the self-proclaimed representative of our working class then championed over the clearly-expressed desires of actual workers.

But no headline post here at The Stranger has yet admitted those union-represented construction workers told their self-proclaimed spokeswoman what they really wanted.

So everyone at The Stranger is surprised, confused, angry, and lashing out in rage at those of us who were allowed to know what had actually happened.

Keep on saying it’s all Amazon’s fault. That has worked really well for you so far, hasn’t it?

So Seattle is no longer progressive? So the city that went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump 87-8 is "now seeing a resurgence of the white Right?" And all in just a year and a half. Yeah, right.

Of course, Mr. Mudede knows this is hogwash, and it's the hogwash we've come to expect. The Stranger has been turning into a left-wing mirror image of Fox News. Hey, if that's what pays the bills… And here I am commenting, so I guess I'm just encouraging this BS.

I know I've mentioned this before. It's interesting to me that, for all the Stranger writers we've heard writing in favor of the head tax (often using the kind of disingenuousness and demagoguery you'd expect from the right), we have yet to hear a peep on the issue from Dan Savage. I'm starting to suspect that Mr. Savage knows better than to argue that the head tax was a good idea, but he just doesn't want to spoil the party.

I grew up here. Fiscally conservative and socially progressive is how I'd describe Seattle(and Puget Sound Region) for at least the past 40 years.

@15
Please don't confuse crazy uncle Chuck by trying to engage him with facts...

Just let him sip his MD 20/20 and babble to himself in the corner until he shits his pants again and wanders out to tell us that "Amazon put poo-poo in his panties when he wasn't looking" again.

World-famous PROGRESSIVE? Is that like the MLB's WORLD Series?

There is no sudden solution to a problem that has grown like cancer for decades. This bill, had it passed, would line pockets and created even more demonstrations and traffic paralyzing protests. Ive been here for 35 years, The old days compared to now are different to a degree. The "Now Seattle" is just "Old Seattle" on steroids..

No. This is a hot issue right now locally but the head tax was always dumb and nobody was pleased by it, not the left and not the right. It was a botched attempt at compromise. City hall is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. Meanwhile the market forces that caused this are playing out without abating.

All this does in the end is provide a snapshot of the city's politics at this moment. Melodrama does nothing. Whatever. Dezone the city and let's get this shitshow on the road.

For all those who keep insisting the head tax(which was never "a tax on jobs")was regressive...it's on YOU to come up with an alternative. You all now have a moral obligation, if you want, as you say, a "regional solution", to support the repeal of the state constitution's pointless and unjustified ban on income tax. It was imposed in the World War One era by the robber baron types. It needs to go, so that those who've made massive profits off of this state and this region will finally be expected to make SOME meaningful contribution in return.

And no, that doesn't mean contributing to the handful of soup kitchens in Seattle which try their best, but whose existence makes no meaningful difference on this.

Bezos and Spady and whoever ends up taking over Starbucks when Howard Schultz leaves will never voluntarily support any meaningful solution to homelessness-because any meaningful solution would mean that they would finally have to make a meaningful contribution to the region that gave them their wealth.

The head tax was a bad idea. And the 'money now, plan later' maneuver in a city that already spends the most per capita on homelessness with no real results, made even progressives wonder why. The supporters referred to the tax as a "big accomplishment"...not results, not a reduction in homelessness...just voting for money. So the opposition was strong.

And the repeal was the most cynical politics. When it became apparent that the referendum on the ballot in November would promise to turn out large numbers of voters skeptical of this city's need for more revenue and their ability to spend it effectively, they knew that other things on the ballot might have a tougher road... so they reversed themselves at the behest of party leaders to make November easier.

The cool thing is most people do not pay attention to what is being taxed and what area is actually being taxed. The Seattle City Council Effed it up for everybody. And I am glad. Any time a city tax comes up for vote now, the voters are going to remember the tent mansion, the needles in the cemetery, the garbage all over, the Ballard rape, and anything that is negatively related to these issues. GOOD. If they did anything positive, they will never be recogonized for it. GOOD. Votes for Seattle taxes are going to diminish. GOOD. In fact it might negatively affect tax initiatives in other areas too. EXCELLENT. Like I said before, most people do not pay attention to the details of the tax. Some people outside of Seattle will vote down taxes based on what they see happening in Seattle. And that is ok with me. I am not going out of my way to correct them. My heroes this year are these people
1. Kubly and SDOT. Thank you for opening other voter's eyes. Kubly is profiting off a bikeshare compnay while his former SDOT enployees are taking the brunt for his bad management. He is a genius. If I was a con artist's apprentice, I would pick him as my mentor. By the way, it is no coincidence that his company is successful here. That was his plan. Indirect taxpayers influenced bonus, by the way. Just another thing to make voters angry PERFECT. 2. Kshama Sawant. When you protest for a tax, maybe you shouldn't sell a book from the company you are proesting. Maybe don't take Seattle paper for the protest to print on. Maybe don't have the City Council be angry that Amazon made it about themselves after going on the news saying "Ho Hey. Amazon has got to pay". Did you protest the othe 500 companies like that? 3. Well Mike Obrien. When he got courted out of the Nortic Heritage Museum post party. That was the funniest thing I had read in a long time in politics. It takes a lot of anger for rich white people to humiliate each other in public.
AWESOME. Another way of getting people to hate Seattle taxes is our blessed protestors. They publicize their cause while the working class can't get anywhere. F the working class, right? People yelling at council meetings are not always from Seattle. People emailing council members to pressure their opinions are not always from Seattle. So it does not bother me that many voters think that all Washington taxes are Seattle influenced. And again, I ain't gonna correct them. I am actually happy about the problem. There are other places to protest, but your baby whiney bitches, who block downtown streets, probably did more harm than good. Now all of King County believes that no laws will even be enforced. ALSO GREAT. Most of the prostesters probably came from a town that does not contribute anything to the homeless cause. A suburb town that does not care about whether youth jails get built. Rich and spoiled, probably. Just guessing. The truth is I don't care whether or not Amazon coould or should pay this tax. I will never support a tax for anyone that includes needle injection sites, it is that simple. I am not going to support a city that says it is ok to set up camp, just because they want to. I am not going to support publicly funded villages until they do criminal background checks. You can insult me or argue with me all day long. I don't care. I am not alone. If we had let this go to a vote, which I think would have been fair, over half of our city would have voted my way. That is what the council thought, and that is why they repealed their BS tax. Even Dow Costantine was against it. His statement was pretty wussified, however. If we voted on it and I was wrong, I would have been ok with it. I would still not agree with it, but I would have supported the majority rule. Not gonna happen now.
Since Idon't want to pay more taxes and I don't want to help the drug dealers get homes, please help me out. Please do the following. Protest more. Make sure Kshama Sawant, Teresa Mosqueda, Mike O'brien talk in public every day. Please support tent camping on streets. Please support injection sites. Thank you. That will be enough to guarantee no new tax hikes for a while. PLEASE protest more!

@41 The homeless don't care whether or not you like having them around, they're homeless and it really doesn't matter to them at this point. Whine about injection sites all you want, but those people are going to inject somewhere. It could be the next town over, it could be right next to your house when you're not looking, but if it's not at a safe injection site, what's it matter? A filthy injection is a filthy injection, same as all the rest.

The cops can do whatever they please to move homeless people around the city, but that's musical chairs. There'll always be more homeless people to replace them, especially at this rate, and especially with city hall squeaking out limpdick taxes like this one that don't actually fix anything. Crowd the jail for trespassing, but that'll mean you pay more taxes, and when they get out they're still going to be homeless.

The solution is a free market one: Dezone the city and remove height restrictions on buildings. Too many suburbs in this town and we've grown complacent. There's plenty of space in Seattle, we just have it filled up with suburbs nobody can afford anyways. Seattle needs housing or else it'll just develop greater and greater slums, and nobody living in those slums will even be capable of giving a single wet fart whether or not you like having slums to look out on.

No such thing as a free lunch. Seattle wants to get rid of all these homeless people, it's not going to do it by dumping them somewhere else, that never works. Ask people in other big cities if anti-homeless spikes and police raids on camps and things like that have really made a dent in the city's homeless population, then watch as you are laughed out of the room. Four things can happen here: the city houses them (they won't and at this point probably can't do that), the market houses them (which only happens on a meaningful scale if we dezone), Seattle's economy tanks and housing prices plummet because the whole city goes tits up, or, the fourth and probably the most likely option, the homeless just mill about and start living in persistent slums no matter what you do.

@42 excellent point.

Sawant originally got elected like Putney Swope did, inadvertently - too many people voted as I did, to send Richard Conlin a message to quit leaning back in the Cut'. She doesn't accomplish much before returning at night to her 1%er mansion, partly because she egotistically enjoys throwing invective bombs more than getting actual progress done.

Is Seattle "progressive?" More like mildly liberal, social democrats who can't get out of their own way, do stuff stupidly and then fold when the big money attacks. This latest poorly thought-out, egg-on-their faces head tax debacle shows why bad actors like Donald Trump and the Bushes get elected in this country: "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." - Will Rogers

No, because Seattle really wasn't ever as leftist as Mudede seems to think. If it was, there would have been far more public concern about inequality, and it wouldn't have let the housing affordability crisis get to the point where it is today.

And it's not just Seattle; the above applies in spades to San Francisco.

There is very little class conscious leftist politics in the USA. It's mostly a class-blind bourgeois liberalism, that primarily focuses on identity politics and feel-good tribal shibboleths.

Pyrrhic victory. That's what it is. It took several billionaires including the world's richest person, plus Seattle's sleaziest (Selig, who owed the city $2 million in overdue bills, and Harrelson, who cut down all those West Seattle trees for a better view) and most privileged (3rd generation trust fund babies like Spady, 2nd gen landlord Burke) to make this happen.

Whatever your position or economic ideology, you must recognize this turn of events is bad for democracy. Would you want something your council and mayor unanimously passed to be jerked out of the city's hands by a few plutocrats? What if it was something you were for? This is a horrible precedent.

Yes Bezos, democracy dies in darkness - but it also drowns in dollars. At least now we know who its enemies are.

How many commentors or Stranger journalists have Amazon accounts? If you supported the head tax, delete it. I am not for the tax, but I deleted mine. For a different reason, however. I figured if I stopped buying crap I never needed online, I could afford a new SUV. Didn't work. I could only afford a 99 Chrysler Concord There is a homeless person near 4th and Lander living in a newer car than mine. I didn't know mid 2000 Cadillacs had built in LED TVs. Nice laptop and barbeque also. I should trade her/him mine. Mileage obviously does not matter in this case. If I supported the head tax, I would feel pretty crappy for having an account. I am sure Kshama Sawant is not crying right now. Her book will sell just fine. People protested Walmart 10-15 years ago the same way they do Amazon and they still walked in the door and watched their commuinity fall. Seattle shoppers are no different. Most of us are just more self righteous. If I rejoin, can I share my wishlist with any of you? There is a bluetooth speaker I would like to purchase so I don't drive texting through my neighborhood. Could you get it for me through Prime? If not, I am ok. I am heading to Walmart to get it now anway. TP is on sale. We can wipe our BS together. If you are annoyed, please protest on 2nd AVE tomorrow. Thank you.
Just kidding on the speaker. I don't text and drive. The person with the cadi will not trade me unless I take the tarp and the stolen bike. Not sure what to do.

"Sawant went on to become a celebrity who inspired other socialists to run for office."

Like Putin’s pal Jill Stein?

The truth is that the people, and most of the business leaders, in Seattle want to help the homeless. The head tax was a dumb idea, put forth by a City Council, that has very little credibility.

As someone else said above, activism is not governance.

Note to Charles’ editors. His writing is lousy with jargon. I’m generally on his side on the issues, but I’m not certain of that because his writing is so dense that I fear he isn’t thinking clearly. He does no one any favors if he can’t communicate without writing paragraphs that are walls of grey text.

One reason no one understands communism is that no one can fucking understand what they are talking about.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/how-much-do-seattle-and-king-county-spend-on-homelessness/

Whatever would we do for resources without a tax on jobs?

Wow, you guys at The Stranger seem really upset about this. I almost feel sorry for you.

And yet clearly, you and the rest of the media are not getting the message. This was not about how Seattle "surrendered to the power of corporate money." This was a referendum on the city council. It was about the voters being fed up with their incompetency and corruption and smug moralizing. And because people have had enough of the crime and filth and blight that have resulted because of them.

@47 "Would you want something your council and mayor unanimously passed to be jerked out of the city's hands by a few plutocrats? What if it was something you were for? This is a horrible precedent."

46,000 citizens in a couple weeks signed this petition. Most of these signatures gathered by volunteers. "A few plutocrats". Go ahead and think that if it makes you feel better. Petition signer were asking it to be voted on by ALL the people. Why is that so offensive and why wouldn't the council and mayor simply let it be voted on if they thought they had so much support.

People are a little fed up of this narrative of business vs. the workers. We have some problems to solve in this city. Activists on our council trying to out left each other isn't helping. We need managers, not activists. This was a rebellion on that and for 99% of the folks signing this petition, it was nothing more than a plea for our council to take some true action and get people off our streets.

This tax was simply about taxing the rich, not helping the homeless. Open your eyes folks.

Reading these comments leads me to the conclusion that posting is SLOG is basically sucking your own dick. Cool as hell and everyone should do it.

I believe they tried socialism in a lot of places. Places like, oh, I don't know, Zimbabwe/Rhodesia? Didn't turn out so well there, or the other dozen or so African post-colonial states.

Funny how Mudede, a native of Zimbabwe, never talks about how well Marxism/Socialism/"progressivism" has/is working in Africa. Why not go over the party program of S. Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters? Why does this guy come all the way over here to tell us what we should do/think and why should we care? hmmmmm.

"Why does this guy come all the way over here to tell us what we should do/think and why should we care?" --gorgeous__gorgie__windsor

"I believe they tried socialism in a lot of places."

They did indeed. They even tried it here in America! And that's why we have free education, fire departments, The Police, non-toll roads, time off from work, once-decent wages, social justice and all that other shit them damn Socialists are always craving/clamoring for.

But, as we all know, socialism destroys character -- unless it's to socialize the costs of Business ("Externalizing" is what exceedingly-well-paid corporate Lawyers call it) and pass them along to the Citizenry. THAT's the socialism guys like you crave, ain't it?

Remember -- they're only "Handouts!" when the wrong people get them.

No reason for despair. It was a poorly written Bolshevik-style tax proposal that should have been tweaked in the first place.
Kshama Sawant’s all or nothing attitude isn’t working.

No reason for jubilation either, our usual right wingers and their new friends seem to celebrate too soon.
One may wonder how come those supposedly ethical, hard-working Americans are posting all their comments when most others are actually working.

Celebrating dudes are highly encouraged to open another 40 ouncer in mom’s basemen and resume their video games.
Don’t forget to submit your fake work search sheet to the unemployment benefits office in a timely manner.

“No reason for jubilation either,“

I disagree. Actual voters did indeed fight City Hall, and win. The process which was going to tax our jobs and throw the money down the rat-hole of our Homeless-Industrial Complex encountered a hard dose of reality. Now, the actual system we’re building can continue to get people securely housed, without interference from our meddlesome City Council.

“One may wonder how come those supposedly ethical, hard-working Americans are posting all their comments when most others are actually working.”

June 14, 2018 at 12:01 PM

Middle of a weekday! Now that’s an own-goal!

(You might want to put down the 40-oz. before you post. Just sayin’.)

No, Progressive Seattle did not die.

What did happen was that we found out that there is a limit to how far left we'll go. Apparently, Seattle is to the right of socialist.

It's interesting that Sawant was shut out of the City Council conversations. Makes me think the council itself is fed up with her and you may have more independent and varied thought. Despite the blaming of Amazon, the reality is the Council itself was deemed to be out of touch with a significant number of Seattleites. A significant enough number to fear being voted out of office.

52, nailed it.

Meanwhile, at Starbucks, people who used to have to crap in the street now have access to toilets.
There are real, proactive measures that can be taken without new taxes. The head tax was repealed because it was an egregious overreach.
Now that Schultz is leading by example, maybe just maybe Bezos will follow.
Hey, Jeff, here's a serious suggestion: put up some money for a trash collection program. Give it a snazzy name. Throw some cash at the problem. Hire homeless people to pick up the garbage, pay them by the full bag. Imagine the positive press.

tensor dear, "June 14, 2018 at 12:01 PM " was my lunch break.

@65: Yes. As others may also have posted on their own breaks. As (a) you didn’t like what they were saying, but (b) couldn’t actually mount a counter-argument to any of it, you decided to attack them personally. With juvenile cliches.

Poorly played.

Dear tensor, part 2
I stated it was a poorly written, Bolshevik-style bill, and my position on Sawant’s style is also well documented. I still think celebrations erupted too early; assuming wrongly that the city has changed overnight.

There is an on going pattern on this thread and beyond of right wingers claiming to be the work force and morality compass, who consistently post their stuff almost exclusively during what most of us would consider as common daytime work hours.
I take their words seriously and trust them to be the decent people they claim to be, hence assuming they’re not at work and just took a short break from playing video games in mom’s basement.

As a lazy, immoral lefty I reserve the right to post my comments any time of the day.
Say hi to mom

Seems like the available options are clear...

Work to remove and replace the 7 feckless councilors who voted to repeal the Head Tax.

-or-

Work to remove and replace the 9 feckless councilors who voted to pass the Head Tax.

Either way, it’s a win for Seattle.

@46 Help? You think I'm trying to help the situation? Why in god's name would you think that? Of course fucking up zoning wouldn't help them, because it would never, ever be implemented and the market right now would mean that it would just speed up the city's inevitable decay into a yuppie cesspool full of tech money that goes nowhere. We're just San Francisco lite as it is. Might as well go whole hog.

If the city were capable of helping itself in this situation, it would have done so already. I just like the mental image of homeless people moving in next door to rich people. I like imagining what the rich people would think. I like imagining that the rich people would be unhappy. I like imagining they would move away. It's entertaining, and that's the most you can hope for out of this situation. If you're demanding actual results out of a citizen beyond volunteering, you're barking up the wrong tree, that's not how this works.

As for everyone saying "voters woke up," it's funny how they "woke up" to exactly the line spouted by the chamber of commerce. That people showed up was a nice addition to the chamber's narrative but not at all necessary, the bill was already gutted before it had even been passed.

As for whether or not the homeless are from Seattle, plenty of the people jacking housing prices sky high in the area by buying up ridiculous homes and agreeing to just the stupidest housing prices aren't from around town, either. Making the city too expensive to live in for average workers is as much a blow to the economy as any homeless person. What good are buckets of money that go absolutely nowhere? If every price is jacked up to the high heavens just to make ends meet, nothing has been accomplished and wage stickiness means everyone gets shafted. So, nobody wins. Whether or not we like it, these people are here, and they're going to keep coming here because if they can afford it, they want to invest in this housing market while the getting's good. Does this make the housing market in Seattle a bubble? We can only hope so.

The drug problem is a total red herring. Homelessness entrenches drug addiction and makes getting clean extremely difficult. Housing and stable living is a major bulwark against drug addiction and relapse. Safe injection sites not only save lives but also stop drug epidemics, ask Portugal. Drugs are not and have never been a valid reason not to care about reducing homelessness.

@70: ‘As for everyone saying "voters woke up," it's funny how they "woke up" to exactly the line spouted by the chamber of commerce.’

Yes, just keep repeating how opposition to the head tax shows Seattle’s voters are stupid and easily manipulated. As if we’re so helplessly blind we can’t see, all by ourselves, how large our homeless population has become after decades of our city’s government throwing our money at it. Yes, insulting your fellow citizens after they hand you a huge defeat is a good way to show that you understand their concerns about how their money was squandered. Cripes.

“As for whether or not the homeless are from Seattle, plenty of the people jacking housing prices sky high in the area by buying up ridiculous homes and agreeing to just the stupidest housing prices aren't from around town, either.”

No one is asking our employers to pay a tax on our jobs to help those people. Those people are spending their money in our community, not wandering around our city stealing so they can shoot up. The groundless claim about most of our local homeless population being locals is meant to justify spending yet more money on underperforming social service agencies.

“Homelessness entrenches drug addiction and makes getting clean extremely difficult.”

Obviously, which is why “affordable housing” is such a red herring. No housing is “affordable” to someone who will spend any money he gets on drugs. Treatment must come first.

@71 I wasn't in favor of the head tax because I didn't think it would work to do what it intended to do, that is, fix homelessness. Numerically it would have fallen far short of what would be necessary. It would have been squandered, you're right, because they were playing footsie when they should have been going for third base already. Do it or don't. Finding "middle ground" is stupid when you know how much you need to fix the problem. Imagine if NASA said "well we need ten thousand liters of fuel but since that's expensive, we're just putting five thousand in as a compromise."

"Treatment coming first" is pointless. Treat them, then turn them back into the street where they're surrounded by dealers and have instant access to their drug of choice and no social support network or tangible incentive not to use? The only way you would be doing them a favor is if you had a Portugal-style clinic that everyone here clutches their pearls over. Don't bother with treatment if you're not going to support infrastructure to provide tangible long-term incentives. Just the idea of getting clean isn't enough. If it was, we wouldn't have this issue.